So I was on the phone with my mom yesterday, and I told her that I had finally lost enough weight to fit into a smaller bra size. She asked what I weighed and I told her 148. Her response: "Well, you could still lose more."
That makes me so angry! Does she even care how hard I've worked to get this low? It's like when I first told her I was going to go on a diet, and I said that I wanted to get to 130, and she said "Don't you think you should go lower than that?" I was like, geez, I have to lose over 50lbs to get to 130, and 130 is a perfectly acceptable weight for my height, do you want me to be skin and bones?
She also never misses the opportunity to tell me "when I was your age, I weighed 120." It's so frustrating to me, because first of all my father's side of the family is all overweight so there must be some genetics going on there, and second of all, my parents raised me eating crap all the time. I don't know how they could possibly have expected my sister and I to not get overweight when we were eating so much junk food all the time, but they still have been telling me I'm fat since I was a teenager, when there was nothing I could do about it (since I just ate whatever my parents put on the table).
At least since I've started losing my dad has finally turned around and become more supportive, and if I told him I could run 4 miles or I had lost a lot of weight he'd say "That's great!" I just don't understand what my mom is thinking when she says this stuff, or how she could fail to realize how much it upsets me to hear stuff like "you could still lose more."
Anyway, sorry for the rant. Does anyone else have this problem with their parents?
uh, yeah. That's my family in a nutshell! My mom is very quick to say anything that pops into her head without thinking about how or what she's saying! She's 128 pounds and was been 124 to 128 my entire life. She's always quick to point out that the highest she's EVER been is 140, but that was when she was pregnant with me. She's FINALLY starting to say positive things to me about my progress. She also was complaining to me that I was walking too fast when we went for a walk the other day! My dad saw me a few weeks ago and said I was looking really good, to get positive feedback from parents is truly a wonderful gift and motivator. However, most of the time, I just get my mom talking out of her a$$!! I think that woman must be choking on toe-jam most of the day for as often as she sticks her foot in her mouth!!!
so sorry to hear your mom is not being supportive... i think this might have been talked about on another thread, but i guess its the whole idea that people in your lives (esp. really close friends/bf/family) are often the last people who will let you change
almost like if they accept that you are doing something positive, they are forced to reflect on their own short comings...not that i at all agree with your mom (148 is a great accomplishment !) just that i wonder if maybe she has her own major body image issues
i know that my mom (who is 5'2 and weighed about 160, and thats after 5 kids) was constantly berated by my dad about how 'fat' she looked, how disgusting she was (funny since he is overweight himself) as a kid i was pretty angry at him all the time, until i realized that he did it in a way to reflect his own poor self image, and when she lost about 20 pounds, it really freaked him out, letting go of that feeling of being better than someone can do that (parents are not immune...and its just sad to think about)
anyways i hope you are feeling ok, and you really have done so much all ready
Thanks everyone, it's nice to know other people are struggling with the same things. My mom is overweight, and has been my entire life, and so is my dad. That's especially why I think it's dumb -- like, who cares if my mom was thin when she was 22, she hasn't been thin since then! My parents have started trying to be a little bit healthier lately, but AFAIK my mom still weighs around 180 (she is a couple inches taller than me). My dad is my height, maybe a little taller, and he's been over 200 as long as I can remember (and it's not muscle weight, he has a huge belly). He's always had high blood pressure and was recently diagnosed with diabetes (a mild form, but still).
Mostly I just get frustrated, because I know that the way I eat is as much a product of my upbringing as genetics. My mom used to be a dietician, so you'd think she'd feed our family healthy food, but growing up it was microwaved breakfast burritos or cocoa puffs for breakfast, lunch at school was probably pizza, and dinner was just as often KFC or something as home cooking, and the home cooking was usually deep fried anyway. I guess I just don't understand how my parents can pick on my sister and I for gaining weight when they never taught us healthy eating habits, and they scoff at low-fat food or tofu or any "health food," and they used to roll their eyes at me if I said I was going for a walk or a bike ride.
Erincrista, if you check out the Support forum, there is a thread called "Be Accountable! Post your daily food intake" where I post what I eat every day. This past weekend has been pretty poor eating for me but I'm usually pretty good.
I've also had the problem of my parents laughing at me as a teenager putting on this weight. Both of them are slim-medium and lose weight easily, so I can't reason that its a self image shadow. I try to help my Mother now cause she has high cholesterol; I throw those poly saturated oils and bake/boil meats I prepare, but I get the response "I've been doing it that way(high fat) all along". Its tough and I understand totally your stress.
You just have to keep your goals in sight and trust that you can make good decisions when it comes to your health. Rant, Rant, Rant
lol...if my mom ever said that to me...oh man id be SO mad at her...adn id probably let her know how mad i was, and well...it just wouldn't be pretty. My mom used to have tendencies like that, but as a teen I was a horrible child...let's just say if she ever made comments like that to me I would snap at her. I'm not that way anymore, but I don't think my mom would ever say anything like that to me now, if she did, I'd just give her the look, and she'd know to be quiet.
I don't have a mom to do this so from an outsider's POV, do you think (especially for those who's moms ARE overweight) they say this annoying sh!t because they don't want you to get to be the way they are?? And rather than go about it in a more loving manner they do it this way because they don't know how to do it more lovingly???
Clippy, that sucks. I'm sorry. When I was younger....I think around 5th grade my dad and my brother used to make pig noises at me when I was eating. Around that age is when I started my emotional eating thing. Neither of them would do it now, but I remember how it felt.
aw, how frustrating...I can TOTALLY relate...I wont go into details but at least now you know that there are MANY of us, who can relate to and understand how you are feeling....and sometimes being able to vent and knowing that you are not alone means MORE than how a mom treats her daughter......Now that I have a daughter, there are some things I do NOT want to pass on to her that my parents did to me, and I will DEFINITELY be encouraging and supportive!!!!
Keep your chin up, you should be VERY proud of yourself, and deep down we want acceptance from our parents, and it hurts when we dont get it, but your doing great and you have to be HAPPY, smile!
You're blaming your mother for your past bad habits and being overweight? If she sent you to school with a salad, yogurt and fruit would you have eaten it? sorry, but you sound like you never had a choice of what you could eat. Were there other things in your house besides frozen and fried food?...did you ever go grocery shopping with your mother and pick out healthy foods? Were you interested? Or were you doing something else?
Congrats on your acheivements. Now you can take responsibility for yourself.
I feel like I fall somewhere in between as far as my relationship with my parents and weight goes. It wasn't until I went to college that my parents became really hardcore health nuts. Some of the time they are "triggering" for my eating issues, other times they are extremely supportive and positive, and then sometimes they use hanging out with me as an opportunity to slack off.
Recently, I was talking to my mom about how with all the weight she has lost she is unhappy with the skin on her arms.
Me: Well if I were you I wouldn't keep that from letting me wear tank tops. I mean, I my arms arent small and I still wear them.
Her: Yea, you do have big arms.
Ummm.. ok mom, thanks. I think sometimes people say careless things because they don`t realize how mean they sound. Maybe if you mentioned that it hurt your feelings and you would appreciate her support she would think about what she says in the future?
oh man!! My mom is the exact same way. Even after I was in recovery for bulimia she still said horrible things about my weight (of course she'd catch herself and say "oops" or "Im sorry" but still those words really really sting)
ew, marbleflys, are you disputing that we learn eating habits from the people that raise us? my family wasn't really like paperclippy's with the unhealthy food around but i'm going to defend what she said...
i'm going to go out on a limb and say, UH YEAH, if someone is raised on good healthy food, they will eat it. of course... my mom never gave me olives because she doesnt like them herself, so I never ate olives and i still don't (dumb example, but makes a point). they way we are brought up has a huge impact on our eating habits. yeah, when i was 5 i was totally going to the grocery store and begging my mom for healthy food!! that's realistic.
Mother who just doesn't get it? (rant)
That makes me so angry! Does she even care how hard I've worked to get this low? It's like when I first told her I was going to go on a diet, and I said that I wanted to get to 130, and she said "Don't you think you should go lower than that?" I was like, geez, I have to lose over 50lbs to get to 130, and 130 is a perfectly acceptable weight for my height, do you want me to be skin and bones?
i think this might have been talked about on another thread, but i guess its the whole idea that people in your lives (esp. really close friends/bf/family) are often the last people who will let you change
